


Drowning on Dry Land

by authoressjean



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Almost Drowning, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Randomness, attempting to drown, dark humor perhaps?, happy ending guarantee, no one dies I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 21:32:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/authoressjean/pseuds/authoressjean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will's still looking for the peace and silence he found one day after he got swept under the waves. Try as he might, he still can't drown himself. It's always one thing or another, on the boardwalk: if it's not for his own inability to hold himself under the water, it's Thornton who refuses to stop pestering him. </p><p>Maybe he'll find the peace he wants on the boardwalk. Maybe he'll find it with the man who grins all the time and keeps wearing red and white striped tops like he's a goddamn pirate. And maybe, just maybe, he won't mind.</p><p>One-shot, very modern, very AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning on Dry Land

**Author's Note:**

> This is a random bunch of randomness. The first part honestly came from a dream I had last night that wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it. And then it all just came pouring out. Blame Heyerette and Kaleidoscope Musings for my posting this.
> 
> For the record: this is an AU. If you're concerned about them being OOC, then imagine that they both grew up in a very different modern world which changed things. And bear with me. If you can't stand fics where Thorin isn't dark and broody and majestic and Bilbo isn't fussy and determined and optimistic, then this probably isn't the fic for you. I just don't want to be shot when this doesn't exactly line up with the canon/fanon characteristics of Bilbo and Thorin. (Though I will argue that Thorin was a playful and jovial scamp in his youth before Smaug came because have you seen Fili and Kili?)
> 
> Mucking with canon mwahaha.
> 
> Don't read the End Notes unless you want to spoil the entire thing.

He needed to drown like an old man with prostate issues needed to piss: without pause or rest until he finally got relief. Well, it had sounded more poetic in his head. And it didn’t change the fact that he needed to.

Not that anyone would oblige him. Not even himself.

Will stared out into the ocean, the wind brushing through his errant hair. It would’ve been a quiet, contemplative moment if it hadn’t been for the boardwalk running on around him. Even the dark of night hadn’t dimmed the merriment and fun, and most everything was still brightly lit up and running. Children laughed as they ran ahead of their parents, funnel cakes and ice cream in their hands and smudged around their mouths. Other kids were crying when their parents dragged them away from the games, wanting “just one more try” at a chance to win the big monkey that they wouldn’t care about tomorrow. On the other side of the social spectrum were the teens, wandering around, trying to seem more important than they felt. They pushed at each other and laughed until they spun around, but Will knew how they really felt. The loneliness, the needing to fit in, not really belonging anywhere, desperate to fill the void. And it never ever worked.

Well, maybe not quite the same way they felt, because they looked like they were having a grand time. And here he was, probably the only European anywhere to be found on the New Jersey shoreline, with no one around him except the air, and even that would probably have fled if not for the laws of physics.

“Still want to get out there?”

Apparently he wasn’t as alone as he thought. And also not the only Englishman on the walk tonight. “Not in the sense you’re thinking of,” Will said, turning to the other man. Scruffy beard that kept looking like it wanted to come in but wasn’t allowed, floppy hair that kept getting pushed out of the way, a brightly striped shirt like he was a goddamn pirate. He raised his unimpressed gaze to the man’s face, ignoring the grin he got. “Don’t you wear anything else, Thornton?”

“Don’t you do anything except gaze at the sea, Will?” Thornton responded. “And it’s _Thor_. Why you won’t call me by my proper name, I’ll never know.”

“Because you won’t _give_ me your proper name. All I’ve got is your last name.”

“Who said it was my last name?” Thornton asked, eyebrows dancing, and Will finally snorted with a reluctant grin.

“Because your mum must’ve hated you to place that sort of poncy name on you.”

“Don’t put this on my mum; how a woman’s supposed to give birth and then give a decent name all at the same time, I’ll never know.” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it up. He didn’t offer Will one. He knew better than that. His gaze drifted over the ocean, and Will followed his eyes out to the distant sea.

It would feel so grand and glorious. To just slip under the waves and never come back up again. God but if he could just keep his body under then he’d be a happy man. Let the water drift him out to the farthest point and let him sink down to the deepest depths. Nothing else more than that. Just the water flowing over his ears and the silence. The silence and the peace.

“I’ll take you out there, one day.”

Will glanced over at Thornton and found the man’s attention not on the sea, but on him. “I’ll get you in my boat one of these days,” Thornton promised him.

“That is one of the worst euphemisms I’ve ever heard, and on the boardwalk, you hear some bad ones.”

Thornton grinned and pulled another drag from his cigarette. “Those things’ll kill you,” Will said.

“So will drowning.”

Will shrugged. “One of these days, that’s the hope.”

“You’ll change your mind. You always do, in the end. You never stay under.”

“Don't remind me,” Will muttered.

“You know, that's a _good_ thing,” Thornton drawled. “One day, you'll change your mind for good. And then I’ll show you the better part of the ocean: the part on top of the waters.” Then Thornton was gone with a quick wave and long steps. He bowed long and lavishly to a bachelorette party moving down the boardwalk, which left them tittering and giggling in a very drunken manner. Will watched him go until he was barely a white and red speck in his sight.

He pushed himself away from the railing and over to one of vendors who was offering plastic buckets full of cotton candy. One of the buckets wound up in his fingers, almost like magic, and he wasn’t certain where he’d gotten his sticky fingers from, but he was grateful for his meager burglaring skills in times like this. After that, it was down to the far end of the boardwalk that jutted out into the ocean. He picked up random things on the way: various heavy things that would fit in the bucket. A napkin dispenser here, a large stone there.

Then before any of the police on duty could so much as call breath to stop him, he stepped over the edge of the pier and down into the water, bucket tugging him down. For a moment, the rush of water over his ears was glorious, and the quiet peace was all he wanted.

His lungs started to burn, and the bucket wasn’t quite heavy enough. He fought to keep himself there, keep himself under, but he knew it wasn’t going to do any good. He was heading back to the surface before he could think about it, and he broke the surface with a huge gasp for air. Above the water he could hear the shrieking of people above him, and then he was being grabbed by a large burly arm of the policeman that hauled him over to one of the rescue ladders. He sighed, bucket still in hand, the items in it soggy and wet.

He got charged for the bucket and the napkins and whatever else he’d put into the bucket. It all got emptied and returned, and then it was just him left to wander back to his small room for the night. He sat on the end of his bed and stared at the wall for a bit, imagined putting something there. Perhaps a portrait, or a shelf to put things on. His landlady had said he could do whatever he wanted with his small room. Yet he could never seem to do anything except replace the toaster when it inevitably died (he blamed the shoddy electric outlet) and clean the fridge out and stare at the wall.

For some reason, this silence wasn’t peaceful. Not like it was under the water.

 

The problem was that Will knew he was looking for something else, something more. Something beyond his miserable existence that he couldn’t seem to escape from. And he didn’t know what it was.

He’d tried religion. He’d tried a lot of religions. That hadn’t worked, hadn’t filled the void inside.

So he’d tried women. And when that hadn’t worked, men. That hadn’t worked either.

Food hadn’t satisfied, drink had only numbed the feeling for a bit and left him sicker than hell the next morning. Nothing had worked until he’d gone swimming and found himself under a wave that had left him trapped beneath the surface. The instant peace and silence had left him mesmerized, the void filled with cold water and solitude.

He’d been trying to get back under ever since. And so far, if it wasn’t one thing keeping him from fulfilling his deepest desire, it was another.

 

He tried again the next night, when he didn’t see Thornton anywhere on the boardwalk. Just started walking into the waves and got under for a decent time before his lungs got the better of him and he started pushing to the surface before he could stop himself. He really hated his lungs for being more important than his brain and heart.

Two nights later – he’d been forced to work late at the crab bar the night before – he found himself under the waves again, except the waves were exceptionally fierce, and he wound up shoved back onto shore, sputtering and coughing up sea water.

The third night he didn’t even get into the waves, thanks to a random parade that had taken up most of the boardwalk. He settled down on a bench that somehow wasn’t occupied and stared longingly through the throng at the ocean. It wasn’t as filled with waves tonight, the tide even and almost calm. No wind: all the better. And here he was, stuck watching the water instead of drowning in it. “Wonderful,” he muttered.

“It is wonderful, yes.”

“Do you just _track_ me somehow? Did you stick a microchip on me?” Will asked, glancing up at Thornton. Red and white striped shirt again, but this time his hair was sort of under control. He glanced at the back of Thornton's hair and grinned. “Are you intentionally growing it out, or haven’t you got it cut with all this stalking you’re doing?”

“Stalking?” Thornton asked, sounding wounded. “I seek a friend out and suddenly I’m stalking. Pardon me.”

Will gave him a half-hearted shove that made the other man laugh. “Wanker,” Will mumbled, and his gaze once again went out to the ocean. It was all but begging him to go in, and even as he thought about rising to do just that, he found himself waiting to see what further conversation Thornton had to offer. Besides, the parade was sort of still in his way.

“Why do you want to drown?”

It wasn’t asked with any sort of condescension or pity. It was just a curious question, and Will found his own honesty rising to the surface. “I’m just looking for that peace I found that one day. When I was under the water. It’s…it’s beautiful. No worries, no cares, just the emptiness that somehow fills you. That’s all I want.” He paused. “Maybe I was a fish born out of water, and I’m just trying to get back.”

“Maybe. But you’d make a hell of an ugly fish.”

Will scowled at him. Thornton grinned and gave him an almost gentle nudge. “Much more handsome as a person,” he added, then turned his attention back to the parade. It gave Will’s cheeks a bit of time to cool down and his mind time to engage. Thornton flirted with everyone. _Everyone_. And almost everything. Friendly, jovial Thornton. Who somehow still kept seeking Will out, time and time again.

“You still want to take me out on your boat?” Will asked, somehow desperately needing to know the answer right that instant.

The blinding smile he got for it left him with a lighter heart. “Any time. The offer’s always open. But you can’t fall over the side of my boat. She’s a good craft and there’ll be no falling over. You can’t do that to her. She hasn’t lost a sailor yet, and you’d break her heart if you tried.”

Will’s lips turned up. “No falling over, then. I’ll think about it.”

Thornton looked pleased as punch. “Knew I’d get you out there. You tell me the day and time, and I’ll make sure she’s ready. I might even let you guide her.”

“…Really?”

“Not a chance. You’d get us lost, even within sight of land.”

He felt completely justified shoving Thornton off the end of the bench, enjoying himself even if the man laughed and laughed.

 

The sea was brutal the next two days, stormy weather making it rough and choppy. Will found himself taking on extra shifts in the crab bar, determined to make good use of his time. Maybe even make a few extra pennies to buy himself a wind breaker or whatever sort of nonsense they wore on boats. He wasn’t going to go out there with Thornton and _freeze_.

Then he wondered why he even cared. Whatever he bought was just going to be donated somewhere after he drowned. Well, someone would get something of value from his place, at least. Maybe Thornton could take it and give it to one of the girls he took out on his boat. Bound to be plenty of those.

The thought left him so soured that he trudged home in the rain, not even caring that he was soaked down to the bone by the time he was back to his small room. A quick, warm shower didn’t change his attitude much, either. Neither downpour had been peaceful or calm-inducing, despite the shower’s best attempts. He hid under the sheets and listened to the rain pour down.

 

The next day was cloudy but clear. He stepped out in the morning and wandered down the soaked boardwalk, enjoying the humid air that filled his lungs with each breath. Almost like drowning, he supposed, and he would’ve stopped and tried to feel the peace from it if it hadn’t been for the sudden shouting. Or the flashing lights up ahead. Curiosity got the better of him, and he went to join the small crowd.

There were several boats around one of the piers, and Will frowned as they began hauling things out of the water. Big things, too. Had someone gone partying in the storm and dropped things into the ocean?

“Boat crash,” someone from beside him said to someone else. “Nets and all sorts of things in the water now.”

“Did anyone get hurt?” the someone else asked.

“I don’t know. They haven’t said. I hope to god they didn’t.”

Will almost turned and walked away at that point – too many coast guard boats in the water to even try and think about drowning – when he saw them pulled something red and white out of the water.

His blood ran cold.

There was a buzzing in his ears, a high pitched whine that seemed to override the slowing of his heartbeat. He found himself stumbling down to the beach to get a closer look, but then there were policemen there, telling him that the beach was closed until they finished cleaning what they could. He argued, or tried to, with numb lips and tongue, because that was a red and white striped cloth in their hands and they didn’t understand.

They got him back onto the boardwalk, and Will could only stare and stare. He didn’t know what kind of boat Thornton had. He only knew that he had a boat, and he flirted with everyone, and he wore red and white striped shirts because he fancied himself a nutty pirate, and his stubble and his long hair and his bright eyes and his grin and-

His ears were working again, because he could hear his name being called. When he turned, he was being regarded with a worried gaze. “Will? What happened?”

Will just reached out for his zipped up hoodie – stupid white and red shirt visible underneath it – and dragged Thornton into his arms until he could breathe. “Easy,” Thornton said, still sounding perplexed. “Will, are you all right?”

Will glanced sideways out into the water, where they were pulling more scraps of white and red striped fabric from the water. Probably a blanket or a sheet or even a sail. It wasn’t Thornton, and that was all he cared about.

Thornton must’ve seen, because he grabbed Will and held him close. “I’m all right. Not my boat, and thank god for that. Whoever runs their boat in an east coast storm is a fool. You don’t think I’m that stupid, do you?”

The teasing tone was meant to pull a smile, but Will couldn’t do it. He just rested his forehead against Thornton’s chest and pulled in ragged breaths. “Will,” Thornton murmured, and he didn’t let go, just kept his hands steady on Will’s back until he had a better chance of pulling away and not making a mess of himself. His hands were larger than Will’s, heavy in weight, and somehow still a comfort.

Will pulled himself from the embrace and met Thornton’s gaze. “If the water’s calm, will you take me out tomorrow?” he asked, the words tumbling like drops of water.

If Thornton was surprised by his sudden request, he didn’t show it. In fact, his usually grinning face was sober, and he brushed a hand over the side of Will’s face as if to brush something away. “Yes, I will,” Thornton promised, his low voice somehow familiar. Of course it was familiar, Will knew Thornton, had known him for months now, but somehow, that level of voice was a clamor from the past, and Will didn’t understand.

Nor did he care, at that particular moment. “I’ll meet you at the docks,” he said, then wondered if that was where Thornton actually stored his boat.

Thornton shook his head. “I’m beyond the other end of the boardwalk, far enough that we’d waste half the day walking. Come meet me at my place and I’ll drive us both over there.”

“Fair enough,” Will said, and Thornton finally began to smile again. It felt like the sun when it broke through the clouds, and Will took the feeling – and the address – with him all the way back to his small room.

 

He bought a windbreaker.

The inner lining was red and white striped. He had a feeling Thornton would appreciate that.

He still felt like an idiot for buying it but couldn’t stop grinning.

 

The next day, he deliberately wandered the boardwalk a bit to get rid of his nerves. This was Thornton and he was being ridiculous. Honestly.

But this felt like something much larger than teasing and flirting on the boardwalk. This was another step towards the sea and yet a step away from it, all at the same time. This was Will making a choice, and somehow, it still felt like coming home. Like touching the edge of that great something he’d always been looking for and hadn’t been able to find yet. Maybe it wasn’t the ocean. Maybe…maybe it was something more.

And maybe he was being an absolute prat and he was going to be late if he didn’t start moving.

He still wound up early at the house, a small narrow thing not far from the main stretch. Cost a pretty penny, though, Will knew that much, and he wondered if Thornton was suddenly as rich as his name sounded. Then he started wondering about the boat. He'd always half imagined a dingy boat, but this might actually be a proper _boat_.

And then he stopped wondering about everything when a woman stepped out of the house, Thornton right behind her. He said something and she laughed and gave him a quick swat on the arm in good-natured fun. After saying something else, she pushed herself up to press a kiss to his cheek, and there was such love in her eyes when she watched him, and there was love in his as he embraced her.

Will wasn’t certain if he made a noise or if the passing car behind him drew their attention to him. Thornton sort of froze on the small porch, and the woman looked equally as startled. Right. Because he was early and he wasn’t supposed to have seen this. Seen that he was just the side-job that Thornton dallied around with when he felt like it.

Because Thornton wasn’t as impossibly in love with Will as much as Will was with him.

He still managed to keep himself upright through the sudden revelation and gave a short nod to them both. “Ma’am. Thornton. Sorry, I forgot…something. I won’t be able to go out with you today after all, so there’s no need for you to, um, to leave. Early. On account of me.” He wondered how he was even getting the words out, what with his throat so clogged up and tight.

“Will-“ Thornton began, eyes getting wider with every moment, and Will turned and left. Okay, it was more like fleeing, darting back across the street and making the car coming down the road blare on its horn. Thornton was still calling him, maybe even chasing after him, and Will just kept going. He was outright running now, terrified of being caught, terrified of having to hear that he was just another fling that Thornton had been chasing after. Not when the stupid man meant so much to Will.

Not when he meant _everything_ to Will.

He was on the boardwalk before he even knew it. The cloudy and colder day meant there weren’t as many people around, and he found himself heading towards the pier before he knew it. The windbreaker was flung off – better use to someone else – and he knew he heard Thornton call his name again. The void inside of him was splintering and getting bigger, his heart physically aching inside his chest, and his lungs could barely breathe now. That meant he had a chance. A chance at finally staying under.

Thornton shouted his name as Will ran straight off the end of the pier.

The drop into the water was dizzying, his stomach already so twisted in knots that the lurch almost made him sick. Then he was into the water, his face burning from the slap, and he didn’t even think, he just kept going down and down. The waters were dark out here, dark enough that he didn’t know he’d hit the bottom until he literally touched it. He swam until he was flat against the bottom as best he could.

He’d been wrong, so wrong. To think that anything else could give him the peace and silence that he’d felt that day in the water. The water filled his ears and left his world quiet, even as his head kept spinning and his heart kept screaming. He opened his eyes and let the tears join the sea. He couldn’t see much of anything, as dark as the waters were, but he knew there was a great deal of water between him and the surface, and that was all he wanted.

His lungs burned. He didn’t care. His body tried to drift up and he pushed himself a little further towards the bottom.

And yet all he could still see was Thornton, Thornton and his stupid grin and his bright eyes and his damn shirt and his low voice that he still remembered-

Remembered?

The burning was starting to make his chest heave, desperate for air, and the cold was beginning to sink into his bones. Nothing like the warmth of Thornton beside him on the boardwalk, or his large hands running up and down his back.

The silence wasn’t enough to stop Will’s mind, and suddenly he felt trapped, down in the dark and the cold and the airless water. There was no peace or silence down here. Even with all the ocean around him, he still felt claustrophobic. No. He wouldn’t get peace from drowning. All he could feel now was an ever-growing fear.

The realization jolted through him like an unwelcome touch. He didn’t want to drown. He didn’t want to die.

He began pushing towards the surface when he felt his foot catch. A net. A net from the boat crash, coiled around the bottom of the pier. He tried tugging it free, frantic when his lungs panicked and begged for air. But it wouldn’t come free, and he was going to die down here, drown just like he’d thought he wanted but he didn’t, not really-

His mouth opened to pull in air, his lungs overriding his brain, and his only took in water instead. It burned down his throat and into his nose and Will tried swimming away, tried to get to the surface. His vision was going black, and the cold of the ocean left him so damn afraid. This wasn’t the peace and silence he’d wanted. This was nothing that he wanted.

He wanted the warmth of the sun and the wind in his hair. He wanted the adventure of a new day that he’d been denying himself for so long in his stupid quest to find peace and silence.

He wanted Thornton who’d begun filling the void inside of him.

He wanted

 

 

 

Will suddenly choked and coughed, spewing sea water out of his mouth. He couldn’t see, couldn’t do anything except cough and vomit and pull in large gasps of air. His ears were buzzing, filled with random sounds that didn’t make sense, but beneath it all was the crashing of the ocean.

The surface. Somehow he must’ve drifted to the surface. He could feel the rocking of a boat beneath him, the hard surface a welcome reprieve from the bottom of the ocean.

Then he found himself being lifted and held, pressed against something warm. Large hands wrapped around him so tightly he didn’t think he could ever move again. Murmured words started filtering back in, slowly sinking in past the salt water in his ears.

“ _Bilbo, Bilbo, god, Bilbo_ …”

It wasn’t so much a flooding back as it was a gentle memory of a very distant past. Like waking up one morning and remembering the smell of pancakes that used to fill the house on a Saturday morning as a child. Or the feel of grandmother’s wooden swing that hadn’t been thought of in over twenty years. Or the hand of a dwarf king upon his shoulder, the warm smile after months of traveling, the whispered parting words that had never been remembered fondly, only with pain and longing. So much missed potential.

Will slowly opened his eyes. They were on a boat, a big white thing with very official looking people around. Coast Guard, then. Damn. He stirred in the embrace, and when Thornton pulled away, it was Thorin’s eyes he saw at long last. He thought about saying something, and then he found that he couldn’t.

Someone shoved a blanket at him, and Thornton wrapped it around him before pulling him close again. Thornton was soaked through, too, a towel and blanket being draped over him as well. He didn’t seem to care, his attention too focused on Will. His eyes were red but dry, despite the rest of him currently being drenched. Will swallowed and winced, his throat raw.

“God, Will,” Thornton muttered, one of his hands coming up to wrap around the back of Will’s head. “I couldn’t find you. I kept diving under and I couldn’t find you. I thought…”

“My foot got caught,” Will managed, his voice hoarse. He glanced at his ankle, which looked a little red around the skin. “A net, I think. I couldn’t get back up.”

“I thought you were going under for good,” Thornton said, and Will paused before whispering his reply.

“I was.”

Thornton said nothing. Around them, the Coast Guard were moving about, radioing in for an ambulance to be ready and waiting when they docked. Will wanted to protest that it wasn’t necessary, but given that he felt as if he’d pass out again at any moment, maybe an ambulance wasn’t such a terrible thing.

“Why? Why did you change your mind?”

He wasn’t even entirely certain how to answer that question, but like usual, he couldn’t stop himself from being honest around the other man. “It wasn’t peaceful, or silent. It was crushing and terrifying, and I couldn’t get back to the surface. It didn’t fill the void. I was just…scared.”

Thornton’s arms tightened around him. Will swallowed again and figured he’d be tasting salt water for awhile. “I realized that I wanted to live. That I’d been stupid and I didn’t want to drown and all I wanted was…” There was only so much honesty he could dredge up, even for Thornton, especially given what had made him run off the pier in the first place.

Thornton pulled his head forward and pressed a firm kiss to his forehead. “You scared the shit out of me,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d find you in time, and when I did, you were so cold and you weren’t breathing, Will. If the Coast Guard hadn’t been nearby, I don’t know what I would’ve done. You were limp and lifeless in my arms. Do you know what that feels like?”

“Actually, I do,” Will said without thinking, and Thornton went still. Well, he supposed it wasn’t really a secret to be kept or anything. “I sort of remembered that, just a little while ago. So I can say with certainty that yes, I do know what that feels like.”

Thornton didn’t say anything. Will shifted awkwardly in his arms, his blanket somehow warm despite being wet. “And Thornton is a terrible name,” he said, the silence almost unbearable. “Your other name was better.”

“Was it?” Thornton asked softly. “I would’ve thought it would become a way to curse, given what I did to you.”

“No. I liked your name. I liked a lot of things about you.” He still did, but it was much the same as it had been in a lifetime before: Bilbo loving Thorin with everything he had, Thorin being his everything, and Bilbo…not being enough for the dwarf. At least in this lifetime, it wasn’t a gem but an actual person that had been chosen over him. That almost made it bearable.

Thornton began rubbing his hand up and down on Will’s back. “Good. Because I liked a lot of things about you then, too. I still do.”

The seagulls cried overhead, a better response than Will could possibly think of at the moment. He tried to get some semblance of a thought process to work again. It was hard, being warmed by Thornton, his hands firmly keeping Will away from the water. “Enough to let me be one of the ones to ride your boat?” he asked, trying to keep it light.

Thornton chuckled and pressed another kiss to Will’s forehead. “The only one to ride out in my boat. Besides my young nephews and my sister. I had wondered if you’d met her before, after I fell a lifetime ago, but given today, apparently that wasn’t the case. She hasn’t much changed in appearance.”

Oh. “Oh,” Will said softly, feeling the knot in his stomach begin to unwind itself.

“Oh. She’s probably terrified for the both of us. I think she found your windbreaker.” Thornton sounded as if he was raising his eyebrow. “Did you buy a windbreaker to go out with me?”

Well, when he put it like that, it sounded stupid. “Maybe,” Will muttered. “I suppose I was putting all my eggs in one basket.” Wishing and hoping that Thornton would fill the void that drowning couldn’t.

Thornton gave a laugh that sounded almost hysterical. “A very sound, stubborn, and completely besotted basket, I promise. I’ll keep your eggs safe.”

“There you go with the euphemisms again. I think this one’s dirtier than the boat one.”

His next laugh was loud and full of relief, and he held tight to Will all the way to the hospital after the EMTs deemed it necessary for a more extensive look at him.

 

Two weeks later, once Will got over a very bad bought of bronchitis – and yes, he realized he was lucky to get away with just that and nothing more, thank you _very_ much – he was on the boat with Thornton, cruising around the bay. From the water, the boardwalk seemed to shine, even more than the stars above. He watched it light up the night and curled deeper into the blanket Thornton had all but bundled him up in. The windbreaker, he’d been told, wouldn’t be enough for a night cruise.

“Well?”

Will hummed as Thornton took a seat beside him. “It’s nice,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be a bit more attached to the wheel right now, though?”

“I’ve cut the motor. She’ll drift for a bit, and the lights are on. We’ll be fine.”

The deck of his ‘boat’ was a nice place to sit. It wasn’t really a boat so much as a small cruise liner, as far as he was concerned, but Thornton had insisted that the yacht wasn’t that big in comparison. Will didn’t even want to know what ‘in comparison’ meant for Thornton or what other boats he had at the docks. He was content on this one and with his present company.

The waves offered a gentle soundtrack as they sat and watched the shore. Thornton had been right: it was better out on top of the water. Will wasn’t certain he’d be in the water for some time. Whatever peace he’d found that day under the waves wasn’t there anymore. At least, not under the water.

No, he’d found it in a man who’d refused to leave his side from the hospital, the man who’d taken one look at his small room and offered his place instead, the man who’d walked on eggshells after knowing Will remembered him as Thorin until Will had threatened to throw dirty tissues at him. He’d mostly stopped moping after that, and he was grinning again by the time they’d finally gotten onto the boat.

He'd asked Thornton why he grinned so much now, instead of being as dour as he had been as Thorin. Thornton had just given him a look that had left Will flushing and feeling absurdly pleased all at the same time.

“Wonder if you could cruise around the world on this thing,” Will mused. “Is it big enough?”

“Nowhere close. This is a day-trip type of yacht.”

“Too bad. We could’ve gotten back to England, you and me.”

The waves had been lapping at the boat for some time before Thornton spoke again. “We could go out to the west coast. I could show you my other boat, go up from California to Washington.”

“You have another boat out there?” Will asked, almost incredulously. “Whatever for?”

Thornton’s fingers rubbed against each other for a moment, as if holding an invisible cigarette. He’d quit a few weeks ago and hadn’t smoked one since. “I bought it when I was living over there. Looking for you.”

They hadn’t talked about it, their remembered past life. But it suddenly occurred to Will that Thornton had been looking for him for a very long time. It left his toes curling. “For me?” he asked.

Thornton gave a low nod. “Then I found you, and you were determined to go for a permanent swim. You never managed it though, so I thought I had time, time to make things right, be the friend and lover you deserved and never got. And I almost lost you again because of my own stupidity.”

Not really. It had been a mistake, but Will figured he'd give Thornton time to see it that way. The thought that Thornton had been waiting on him, as hopelessly caught up in Will the way that Will had gotten wrapped up in Thornton again...that was a warm thought, and it filled just a little more of the void inside of him.

“I’ve never been to the west coast,” he said at last. “You could show me your other boat.”

Thornton began to grin and this time stole a kiss proper, darting away before Will could so much as reciprocate. It still left his lips tingling. “Then we’ll go,” Thornton said. Will caught his twisting fingers and wrapped them around his own hand.

The glow from the boardwalk stayed lit for hours more, the perfect beacon to guide them safely back to shore.

_End_

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: to me, Thornton was desperate and determined to find Bilbo and it drove him forward. And then he finally found him and after all the time of searching, all the time of needing to find him, he finally discovers Bilbo on the east coast, and it doesn't even matter that Bilbo doesn't remember him because BILBO. Cue euphoria.
> 
> Plus, the idea of a grinning Thorin who laughs a lot and likes teasing and flirting with everyone because life is grand and amazing? Is really attractive.


End file.
